-
Period: to
Yoo Gwansoon
During the March First demonstrations in 1919, Yoo Gwansoon, as a 16-year-old girl became an important symbol of Korean nationalism and freedom. Together with her classmates of Ewha Haktang, she went onto the streets screaming “Mansei!” (“Long live Korean independence”). -
Period: to
Park Chunghee
Park set up multiple five-year plans during his ruling time and was largely responsible for South Korea’s “economic miracle”: the plans he pushed through gave Korea one of the fastest growing economies in the world. -
The March First Movement
Throughout the world were various groups of Korean citizens that were discussing independence in 1919. One group were Korean students in Japan, they had set up a Korean Youth Independence Corps and over 600 students attended the meeting where they passed a declaration calling for immediate independence. Moreover, there were various groups within Korea that also discussed the topics. -
Period: to
Kim Daejung
During his time of presidency, his rule was mainly focused on recovering the economy of the country. He worked hard to improve the relations between North and South Korea. This resulted in a joint declaration between him and Kim Jongil, which was signed on June 15, 2000. He won a Nobel Price for this. -
Division of Korea
By the end of the Second World War Korea had been under the rule of Japan for 35 years. In August 1945, Korea was finally free from Japanese influences due to Japan having lost the war. The problem, however, was that both the United States of America and the Soviet Union were interested in the just freed country. Thus, Korea was separated in two pieces: North-Korea and South-Korea and the agreement would continue until Korea could come to terms and agree on a kind of unified form of government. -
The Korean War
Also known to the Koreans as the “June 25 Incident,” the Korean War (1950-1953) was the first war that was fought during the Cold War. Between June 25, 1950 and July 27, 1953, more than one million people had died. Some even estimate that the civilian deaths were over two million and military deaths were up to one million. -
End of the Korean War
There are multiple reasons as to why a settlement was made. Firstly, the U.S. rained down bombs over North Korea, killing civilians but also CPV and KPA forces and North Korea needed to recover from the constant bombing. Another reason was that the successor of Stalin did not show any interest in continuing the war in Korea, after Stalin’s death. This meant all parties were ready to sit back down to negotiate. -
The Axe Murder Incident
The deaths of this event were the first casualties in Panmunjom ever since the end of the Korean War. -
Gwangju Uprising
Instead of a settlement, the committee got an ultimatum: if the people did not give back the weapons before four P.M. on May 26, military action would be taken against them. There now was a choice, to surrender or to die, and the leaders of the uprising chose to fight to the last. -
Korea in the UN
On August 8, 1991, the ROK and DPKR both became full members of the UN General Assembly.